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The next president is going to have to go around and sew broken relationships the current administration has torn apart.

cstross 6y ago
Bad news: people outside the US have memories longer than 4 (or 8) years. Even if the next POTUS does make nice, there will thereafter always be the memory of how rapidly Trump tanked the USA's relationships. As a result, nobody will be able to count on US cooperation/amity for long term planning purposes without building in contingency plans for a "what if the next POTUS reverses course abruptly" situation. It might be fixable with a constitutional rebalancing to reduce the ability of the president to rule as an executive without congressional oversight, but that hardly seems likely short of there being a revolution or civil war. So US "soft power" is probably irrevocably damaged, at least for the next 8-20 years.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  Yeah no one's going to forget that a big chuck of the US voted for the current administration and will vote for them again. And they especially aren't going forget that the majority of business leaders are supporting the current administration. That includes all FAANG companies.
dencodev 6y ago
At the cost of trillions of dollars and millions of jobs from Americans no doubt. Historically our international relations have been a disaster for the US and Trump is nothing new.
crisdux 6y ago
This is so melodramatic. The vast majority of our interactions with the world are institutionalized to a point where one president can't unhinge them. The things the current admin changed were on flimsy standing to begin with. An under-appreciated truth about the Obama era was their foreign policy was mostly rife with ineffectiveness and lack of results. The current admin didn't inherit much. Furthermore, our allies are pretty accustomed to America's always shifting between hyper focus and apathy towards the rest of the world. Think about things on a larger context, think 100 years not 4 years.

cstross 6y ago

Bad news: people outside the US have memories longer than 4 (or 8) years. Even if the next POTUS does make nice, there will thereafter always be the memory of how rapidly Trump tanked the USA's relationships. As a result, nobody will be able to count on US cooperation/amity for long term planning purposes without building in contingency plans for a "what if the next POTUS reverses course abruptly" situation. It might be fixable with a constitutional rebalancing to reduce the ability of the president to rule as an executive without congressional oversight, but that hardly seems likely short of there being a revolution or civil war. So US "soft power" is probably irrevocably damaged, at least for the next 8-20 years.

Gibbon1 6y ago
Yeah no one's going to forget that a big chuck of the US voted for the current administration and will vote for them again. And they especially aren't going forget that the majority of business leaders are supporting the current administration. That includes all FAANG companies.

dencodev 6y ago

At the cost of trillions of dollars and millions of jobs from Americans no doubt. Historically our international relations have been a disaster for the US and Trump is nothing new.

crisdux 6y ago

This is so melodramatic. The vast majority of our interactions with the world are institutionalized to a point where one president can't unhinge them. The things the current admin changed were on flimsy standing to begin with. An under-appreciated truth about the Obama era was their foreign policy was mostly rife with ineffectiveness and lack of results. The current admin didn't inherit much. Furthermore, our allies are pretty accustomed to America's always shifting between hyper focus and apathy towards the rest of the world. Think about things on a larger context, think 100 years not 4 years.